Thursday, June 04, 2009

Ben Stiller: the best time I never had.

It wasn't until I was drying my hair this morning that I remembered being with actor Ben Stiller last night - in my dreams. Though I can't recall any details, we were living it up. And he was incredibly funny; so funny that I woke myself up, laughing, at least 3 times. But was it Ben Stiller that was funny, or was it his comedy writer (me)?

The dream only illustrates to me how important humor is in my life. I've always considered myself more of a 'straight man' than a comedian, but I love to laugh, and I think people always appreciate you when you think they are funny.

Which reminds me of my inappropriate behavior this past Monday night.

My youngest son's high school baseball team played in their Sectional tourney and lost. On the way home, we stopped at a restaurant to eat. One of my son's teammates made it clear to everyone that he would be sitting next to me. Ronnie was a Junior this year, and he doesn't have any trouble growing facial hair. Let's just say it would be easy to forget that he's only 17. Plus, he's very funny.

So Ronnie and I sat together in the booth, with my hubby sitting across from us, and my son at a table nearby. I think it was one of those deals where teenage boys like to go on about "your mom is hot," only Ronnie had the added intent of harrassing my husband, too. The problem is that Ronnie is so funny and so engaging that it may have eventually appeared that I was flirting with him. In an innocent way, of course.

You shouldn’t feel like a perv. Go the whole hog and be one. I am, and have never regretted it.

Rather annoyingly, you have reminded me that I woke this morning with the impression I’d had a pleasantly erotic dream. Sadly I couldn’t remember anything about it though – I can’t even be sure if it involved Ben Stiller.

Simon - so are you saying it would be okay to add Ronnie as a friend on Myspace, then leave comments on his page that would piss off all the teenage girls? Because I'm thinking about doing that. I just want your approval first.

I have a feeling all the best dreams are forgotten, which is a tragedy. We might all be happier if we could remember them.

KoP, whatever! The only place I am a Total Perv is in my husband's dreams. Thankfully, he doesn't remember any of them.

Simon, that was beautiful, and I hope you know you're welcome to indulge yourself on my blog, just as if it were your own. I always learn something from you.

Wandering through a house is a common theme in my dreams, except they are usually a mansion, or at least a very large house. Dream experts say that while a house represents all aspects of self in which our identity lives - a body, emotions, creativity, etc. - a mansion is depicting the same thing with a different emphasis. It is our self as we are, plus features still latent, possibilities not yet developed or explored.

One dream of mine was particularly vivid. In it, I was both a young girl and a woman, and I could play the violin so beautifully that I could almost cry from the memory of it. In one scene of the dream, the me who was a girl came face to face with the me who is a woman, and that seemed particularly important, though I still can't figure out why.

I don’t remember ever having dreamt of myself having two aspects simultaneously – the one you describe sounds fascinating. In fact I rarely see myself in a dream at all. But I do remember once dreaming that I was inside a huge cylindrical chamber – that I somehow knew was the interior of a spacecraft – and that I was being pursued by something, and in order to escape I transformed myself into a cloud of orange butterflies (which I was able to see as an external viewer).

Dreams of wandering around large, usually empty buildings are common to me too, along with ones where I’m wandering along old, disused, overgrown railway lines or canals (the latter two being things I did quite a bit in real life). I don’t believe in dream interpretation any more than I believe in the validity of psychoanalysis, I’m afraid: there are of course clear cases where you dream of something that’s on your mind, but dream symbolism… no. I’m always sceptical of anything that says ‘Your mind is trying to tell you something in code which can only be interpreted by experts: pay me the cash/buy my book and find out.’

I love dreams like this, and I love having a vivid, very visually-oriented imagination. It’s better than TV.